BELIEVE

BELIEVE is a shamelessly earnest and indulgent underdog sports story starring Brian Cox as the legendary real life manager of Manchester United. The script from Massimiliano Durante and Carmelo Pennisi imagines what would have happened if Busby had decided to coach a young bunch of working class kids in a local tournament, just out of love of the game and the memory of his young players so tragically killed in the Munich air crash.  

Although much of the film is derivative (working class lads up against posh boys - a mum who doesn't want her kid to play - the conflict between school and sport) I really admire the director David Scheinmann (THE WEST WITTERING AFFAIR) for going into some of the darker material. Although done in almost mocking, caricatured manner, this is a film that shows the class divisions in England, with Georgie (Jack Smith) trying to pass an exam to get into a grammar school rightly seen as potentially life-changing.  I also liked the sentimental but elegantly handled way in which the Munich air crash is handled in a film that is, after all, a PG rated drama. 

Brian Cox is predictably great as Busby but I was surprised at Toby Jones' comic facility and Natasha McElhone's northern accent. But the real star is Jack Smith as the star player Georgie who handles the tough emotional stuff as well as being a good lippy kid.  Could've done without the added contrived drama of a last minute flat tire though.

BELIEVE was released last year in Austria and is currently on release in the UK.

RONIN - stylish, emminently quotable thriller

John Frankenheimer, best known for THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, has since worked steadily and in 1998 gave us the thriller RONIN. Based on a script from newcomer J D Zeik, the film is replete with stylish one-liners thanks, one presumes, to script-doctor David Mamet. And it helps that these one-liners are delivered by the eminently nonchalant Robert de Niro. Nonchalant even when he's talking a criminal through digging a bullet out of his side on a kitchen table.

The plot isn't much to write home about. There's a briefcase. It's a MacGuffin. All you need to know is that the Russians and the IRA both want it. So the IRA (Natascha McElhone and Jonathan Pryce - both with distractingly risible accents) hire a motley crew of internationals to steal it. They comprise de Niro, Sean Bean (acting well!), Stellan Skarsgard, Skip Sudduth and Jean Reno. They run around France looking moody, exchanging witty dialogue, double-crossing each other and generally being cool. Every now and then, to relieve the tension, we get a high speed car chase of the kind that has since been reinvented by THE BOURNE films.

Let me be clear - you don't watch RONIN for plot, character development, good accents or anything else. You watch it for the mood and the dialogue. That more than repays a viewing.

Sam (de Niro): Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.
Vincent (Jean Reno): Who taught you?
Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.

RONIN played Venice 1998 and was released that year. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.

GUY X - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

There are lots of great films about the absurdity of war that combine black comedy with insightful social comment. GUY X is not one of them. GUY X is what happens when you take all that is wickedly funny, noble and true in M*A*S*H and CATCH-22 and then invert it. The film tells the story of a young soldier in 1979 who is posted to Greenland by mistake. Unable to resolve this clerical error he sets about writing the Base newspaper for the autocractic Colonel Woolrap while romancing Woolrap's chick. The movie fails to create the claustrophic, Kafka-esque atmosphere necessary and has NOT ONE SINGLE funny line or moment. The romance between Jason Biggs and Natasha McElhone is insipid. Worse still, McElhone and Jeremy Northam - two fine British actors - cannot do American accents. The final nail in the coffin is when the director lazily sticks "War (What is it good for?)" by Edwin Starr on the soundtrack. This is a brave move because as every funk fan knows, the response to the question is "absolutely nothing". Cue the inevitable title for my review....

GUY X played a bunch of minor Film Festivals including the oh-so-wittily named RAINDANCE festival in London in autumn 2005. It is currently on limited release in Canada and is available on Region 2 DVD.